by Bob Brown Posted 10/14/16, 01:00 am

After a slow start that has all the makings of another tepid Christian drama, Voiceless gets real—with no angelic hero, and no bow-tied ending. Writer/director Pat Necerato intimates that effective opposition to abortion will require the church to get its hands a little dirty.

Movie
| Dull characters flatten a visually sensational film

by Bob Brown Posted 10/03/16, 02:08 pm

Director Tim Burton is known for telling quirky tales (Edward Scissorhands) full of mirth (Beetlejuice) and melancholy (Corpse Bride). That’s likely why his latest film, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (adapted from Ransom Riggs’ young-adult novel by the same name), opened in the No. 1 spot at the box office this past weekend. The film’s visually rich architecture lives up to the hype, but the characters’ emotional flatness dulls an otherwise entertaining journey.

Movie
| Storks counters society's usual tropes about ‘choice’

by Bob Brown Posted 9/23/16, 03:22 pm

According to centuries-old folklore, storks deliver newborn babies. Modern mythology asserts delivering a baby at all is a “choice,” but Hollywood seems to be slowly reconsidering that idea. The new animated film Storks takes the film industry another baby step in the right direction.

Movie
| Amid profanity and promiscuity, at least there’s no mention of abortion

Bob Brown | 9/20/16, 09:59 am

Bridget Jones’s Baby is unlikely to win over people who would rather not sit through two hours of expletives and sexually charged innuendos—free popcorn refills notwithstanding. But if members of the pro-abortion crowd catch wind of this film’s take on prenatal parenting responsibilities, they won’t be buying tickets, either.

Bob Brown | 9/19/16, 01:53 pm

Director Oliver Stone typically doesn’t intend his historically based films to play as straight documentaries. Early on, he nails down his story’s heroes and villains and then weaves facts around those pegs. Snowden, a “dramatization of actual events that took place between 2004 and 2013,” adopts that framework. From the get-go, Stone seems to enshrine Edward Snowden as the Greatest American Hero, putting little focus on how Snowden’s actions might damage national security in the long run.

Movie
| Movie about modern military dealings glorifies the love of money

Bob Brown | 8/23/16, 09:22 am

Based on a true story, War Dogs will likely appeal to disaffected 20-somethings who believe they can find adventure and fortune behind a computer keyboard. The box office hit—in its opening weekend coming in at No. 3, two spots ahead of Ben-Hur—reveals the corrupting influence of money but also glamorizes it.

Movie
| While not as mindless as most family fare, superbly animated film sends mixed messages

Bob Brown | 8/22/16, 01:22 pm

Set in ancient Japan, the new animated film Kubo and the Two Strings tells a magical fantasy story centered on a boy’s search to find the truth about his dead father. Exquisite stop-motion animation marks the film’s technical production as superior even to today’s high industry standard. But seemingly contradictory themes, although not fatal to the plot, muddy the storytelling.

Bob Brown | 8/19/16, 01:00 am

Punam Kumar Gill once believed that claims linking abortion to breast cancer were “pro-life scare attempts.” The pro-abortion filmmaker’s own investigation culminated in Hush, a bombshell documentary she wrote and directed that seems to explode every medical establishment equivocation about the abortion–breast cancer (ABC) link.